by Sarah Rayne
But the covers had not helped that night, because the something that prowled and sniffed and peered had got in, and had come creeping across the bedroom. Michael had kept his eyes squeezed tight shut, as tight as they would go, but he had known quite definitely that the something was in the room, and he had not dared to move in case the something pounced on him, and it had all been quite dreadfully scary, and he would not remember any of it.
He certainly would not remember it now, not when Conn and Niall and the others were here with him, not when somebody was rocking slowly and comfortably by the fire …
It would have been better if the somebody had not cast quite such a huge shadow on the walls. There was nothing wrong with the shadow, not really, only that it made you think that people were not always what they seemed to be. Sometimes they turned their heads to look at you, so that you saw that they had slit eyes and grinning lips and a muzzle, a great, wide, dripping maw that would open wide to devour you. All the better to spin with, my dears … my dears … my dears …
That was what she had said last night, “Come inside, my dears,” and in they had gone. And then the door had clanged to, and they had been in here with her, and there had been firelight and the rocking of a chair and a spinning wheel and, quite suddenly, it was all too scary for words.
In a minute, Michael would open his eyes. It would be a good thing to do, really, because he would see Conn and Niall and the others. You would not be afraid of anything in the world with those. Conn could do absolutely anything and Niall could do very nearly anything.
He opened his eyes a chink. Yes, there was firelight. And an old woman — he remembered now — who was doing something with a spinning wheel. Michael’s grandmother had had a spinning wheel, because they had kept sheep, and there had always been nice fluffy wool for jerkins and mittens and leggings. Michael had been allowed to help spin the sheepwool into the thin, strong wool strands, and it had been interesting. He would quite like to see the spinning now. The lady was nodding and smiling and beckoning, and she was quite old, she was nearly as old as his grandmother had been, which was extremely old, and so there was nothing to be afraid of. It was silly to feel the creeping fear that made you remember about somethings that prowled and sniffed and got in to your bedroom when you were asleep. He would go and see the spinning and perhaps he would be allowed to help.
The lady seemed to know his name. “Michael,” she said, in a rather thick, slurry sort of voice. “Michael. How nice.”
People could not help their voices. This lady could not help having a slimy purr. She probably could not help having black glittering eyes either. She reached out and stroked his arm, and he flinched, because she did not have an arm like most people, but a kind of tentacle thing with hard stringy muscles, covered with bristly black hairs, with the hands curving into talons.
Michael tried to back away, but the Sensleibhe had him in her cruel grasp. “Come a little closer, my dear,” she said in the horrid, slurry, blurred voice that made you think of grease and thick bubbling mucus. “Come a little closer and see the spinning.”
Michael, who did not want to see the spinning at all now, and who was hoping rather desperately that the others would wake up and see what was happening, felt himself pulled nearer and nearer to the whirring wheel, and closer and closer to the treadle that went in and out and that jabbed and stabbed and began to look nastier the nearer you got to it.
“You see?” said the Sensleibhe. “You see, Michael, all the things I use for spinning. Little boys are especially good.” And she reached out her other hand and stroked him again. “Come a little closer,” said the Sensleibhe, and gave the horrid chuckling again. Michael twisted out of her grasp and shot back across the room and collided with Conn.
The Sensleibhe advanced on them. Her hands were reaching out and her eyes were greedy. She was grinning, and she was no longer an old lady like Michael’s grandmother, but a hungry ravening thing with a dripping maw that would gobble you up in minutes, with a muzzle and teeth and fangs … you would be minced and chopped, and she would pull you into the spinning wheel, and you would be turned into thread, all studded with your nails and bits of your hair and shreds of your skin …
“Come nearer, my dears,” said the Old Woman of the Mountains. “All the better to spin with … Little boys for the spinning wheel … Come a little nearer.”
The boys were all wide-awake now, huddled in the corner, staring at the dreadful creature that was creeping towards them across the firelit room.
“We’ll fight you,” said Niall loudly, and the Sensleibhe laughed.
“Such precious poppets,” she said. “Fight? Dearie me, you won’t fight me, my lambkins. Not a bit of a fight will you put up, or I shall have to fetch Mr. Ferryman to you. He’s waiting, you know. Did you know that? He’s just outside the door now. Shall we let him in? He’s standing just outside the door in the dark, very quietly listening and waiting. Shall we open the door and see him standing there in his long dark cloak and with his face covered by the hood?
“And you all know what Mr. Ferryman does, don’t you? You’ve all met him, haven’t you? You know how he creeps into children’s bedrooms and steals across the floor while they’re asleep, and gobbles them up. You’ve all met him, my lambkins, haven’t you? Shall we let him in now?” And she began to move to the door.
Michael thought afterwards that it was Conn who shouted, “No!” but he was never sure. He thought he might have shouted it himself. He thought they might all have shouted.
The Sensleibhe had moved with incredible swiftness to the door; she could not really be old at all, because old people did not move like that, they did not scuttle. The Sensleibhe scuttled. Michael reached for Conn’s hand, because Conn was a good sort of person to hold on to if something nasty was going to happen.
All the better to spin with … skin and teeth and nails and hair … all made into thread …
And then something very strange happened. It was so strange and so unexpected that none of them could ever quite explain it, and certainly none of them could ever describe it.
The Old Woman of the Mountains had reached the door, and she was grinning and nodding and reaching for the door handle. In another minute, the door would be opened, and there he would be, the dreadful creature they all remembered, the monstrous something that had crept into their houses while they slept and crawled up the stairs to their warm safe bedrooms and found its way into their beds …
The door was opening, and Michael had drawn breath to yell, when they all saw it.
Lights, and people running, and confusion. Dark-clad men hurrying about and shouting. And a sound so immense and so steady that for a moment no one knew what it was. Pounding. Drumming. Getting nearer.
And then they saw them. Sweeping through the dark shadow tunnels of the mountain halls towards them were four great creatures of such size and such strength and such dark and terrible beauty, that the boys gasped and cowered back. Horses, but horses such as no one had ever seen in the world. Great gleaming stallions, Barbary steeds, somehow made of shadows and of long endless nights and of eternal black seas. Their flanks were shining ebony and their saddles were crimson leather, and their eyes were like glowing coals, fiery and inhuman.
Michael gasped and felt Conn’s hand tighten about his. One of the boys said in a whisper, “What are they?”
“I don’t know,” said Conn, his eyes never leaving the leaping, pawing creatures. “But she’s afraid of them.”
The horses were coming down the tunnel now, rearing and stampeding. “And they are being ridden,” said Niall, whose parents had kept and trained horses for the Court. “They are being ridden harder than any horse I ever saw ridden.”
The horses seemed to burn with a kind of dark radiance, so that although you could see the radiance all about them, you could only see them as black shapes, at the centre of the unearthly light. They had neither form nor substance, and yet they were real and terrifying, and although you were
afraid to look at them, you could not take your eyes from them.
They could make out the shapes of the riders more clearly now; they could see billowing cloaks and the glint of black armour. The riders wore visors, each one pulled down so that their faces were invisible.
“Faceless riders,” breathed Conn.
There was a sense of timelessness about the riders, and a feeling that no matter how long you looked on them, you would never see them properly.
The horses were coming nearer now, and the boys could make out the fiery breath and see the gleam of spurs and rein and bit. “And although we were frightened,” Niall was to say, “we could not move. We could not take our eyes away.”
The Four Horsemen entering the ancient mountain, riding down into the depths of the mountain halls, where the Doomsday Clock was ticking to the end of the world …
And then one of them said, “Look! The Old Woman! She is terrified!” And somehow, the terror of the Sensleibhe gave them all fresh courage, for the Old Woman of the Mountains was backing up against the walls, staring in dread at the Horsemen, her eyes bolting from her head.
And then there was a tremendous wind, and a great rushing sound, and the riders were standing up in the stirrups, driving their steeds on, and the boys could see them with blinding clarity, and the light was glowing and they were dark and terrible and unearthly and filled with immense power.
And then, quite suddenly, they were past the door, they were disappearing along the dark tunnel, and the radiance was dimming, and the sound of the hoofbeats was dying, and the Sensleibhe was no longer a threat.
Conn turned to look at the others, his eyes shining, “Now,” he said, “out and after them! Ready?” And stood looking at them with such delight and such strength that they began to cheer, a bit raggedly at first, and then with more assurance.
“After them!” cried Conn, and the boys poured out of the cave and out into the mountain.
*
To Taliesin and Fergus and Annabel, the approach of the Four Horsemen was the worst nightmare they had ever experienced. They stood close together, grasping the iron bars at the front of the cell, straining to see through the shadows, hearing Drakon men running and shouting, feeling the panic well up from the heart of the mountain. Fergus, accustomed to action, found himself wanting to tear the iron bars aside and go bounding out into the mountain, attacking the Drakon patrols, forcing a way into the torchlit Cavern of the Clock. Taliesin, quieter, far more detached than the volatile Fergus, remained very still and felt the terror and the chaos soak into his mind, and thought, After all, is this truly the end? Are we about to witness the world dying? Ought I to feel privileged to be here?
Annabel was the least frightened of them all. She thought it was because she had lived with the knowledge for so long, and she thought that when you have dreaded and feared a thing, you find that when it is at last upon you, it is not so terrible as you had thought. She found that she was clinging to the thought of Fael-Inis somewhere inside the mountain, and she found herself watching for the wisp of light and the faint shimmer of fire that would herald his approach. For he cannot have abandoned us! thought Annabel, standing between Fergus and Taliesin. And he cannot be dead, for surely he is nearly immortal!
At her side, Taliesin said softly, “He will not abandon us.”
“Then where is he?”
“Perhaps he is — injured,” said Taliesin, but Annabel knew he had been about to say, perhaps he is dead.
The hoofbeats were thundering closer now, and the three travellers knew that before many minutes had passed, they would be witnessing the dreaded coming of the Heralds, the emissaries who had been prophesied and foretold by generations, and who would precede the coming of the Beast Apocalypse into the world. Plague, Famine, War, Death …
The Horsemen came sweeping by and there was fire and darkness and flying flames and great splintering forks of lightning. Iron-sinew’d and satin-skinned, fierce as fire, violent and cruel and relentless they were. Pegasus ridden by Bellerophon, ridden by Jehu: marvellous and terrible and as unstoppable as the angels.
Tongues of fire and flame shot from the horses’ hoofs, and the three travellers moved back at once. The tunnel was bathed in brilliance, and the sound of the hoofs and the ringing of the spurs and the bridles was deafening. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rushing down on mankind …
Smoke belched out into the tunnel, and the sparks lit dozens of small crackling fires that ran along the ground and burned.
“Shall we burn!” cried Fergus, his eyes brilliant, his hair tumbling over his forehead. “Is this to be the end?”
They were half blinded by the smoke, and their eyes were stinging from the flames, but they could see the Horsemen turning the corner. “They are going away from us!” shouted Annabel through the tumult. “Down the tunnels!”
“They are going to the Clock Cavern!” cried Taliesin. “Fergus, we must somehow stop them —” And then jumped back as flames licked the ground beneath the bars at the front of the cell.
As the Horsemen rode hard round the curve, disappearing into the darkness, a spark from one of their hoofs flew out to hit the door. The lock gave and the door fell open.
Annabel and the two men looked at one another … “After them!” cried Fergus. “I do not think we have very much time left!”
*
No one stopped them as they ran gasping and frantic in the direction of the black Horsemen.
“Follow the sounds,” cried Taliesin. “The Clock — can you hear it?”
“Yes,” said Fergus. “Yes, it is quite close.”
“Don’t lose it,” gasped Taliesin. “There is so much noise, but we dare not lose the sound.”
The noise was deafening. Drakon men were milling about everywhere and there was the thick smell of smoke and the acrid tang of the flames from the Horsemen.
“The patrols and the guards are panicking,” said Annabel. “They are afraid of the Horsemen.”
“Because of the Horsemen they are hardly noticing us,” said Fergus. “We might walk unchallenged anywhere we like.”
They hesitated only once, at the intersection of three tunnels. Then, “This way,” said Taliesin, and Fergus nodded. They were not only hearing the Clock now, they could feel it. Taliesin, leading the way, Annabel between the two of them, thought it was like a great beating heart, like the fluttering of a giant pulse. And we dare not let it stop. Tick, tick, tick … If it stopped, they would know they had failed. If it stopped, the Horsemen would have reached the Cavern and the world would end. Taliesin found himself praying to all the gods he had ever heard of that the ticking would not stop. A heartbeat, a pulse, a pendulum … While it ticks and flutters and swings, we still live, there is still hope. Tick, tick, tick …
Fergus was racing along the tunnels, and he, as well as Taliesin, was feeling the Clock’s heartbeats. If it stopped, they were all dead. If it stopped, the Horsemen had triumphed and the Beast Apocalypse would walk into the world … Shall we actually see it? wondered Fergus, and remembered how he had once thought they would chain the Apocalypse and take it back to Tara to defeat Medoc. But Medoc was in another world and in another time, and it might be that they would never be able to return to it … Then this will be our world, thought Fergus, appalled. This dreadful, bleak, cheerless place will be our world … And if we cannot reach the torchlit Cavern in time, there will be no world for any of us. Is it still ticking? Yes, I can still hear it.
Drakon men were everywhere in the tunnels now, scurrying in every direction, confused and panic-stricken, shouting to one another, trying to avoid the licking flames that had sprung up in the wake of the Horsemen. Several of them were stamping at the flames, and several were dashing buckets of water on to the ground in an endeavour to stop the path of the fire.
Taliesin and Fergus and Annabel were scarcely aware of running now, but the tunnels were rushing past them, and they could hear the Clock’s heartbeats getting nearer. Once Annabel thought they
were in the river tunnel again, because water lapped about their feet and washed over their ankles. And then they turned another curve, and Taliesin pulled them into a left-hand fork, and the River of Souls, if it had been, was behind them again.
They must be very close to the Clock now. Annabel thought that it was almost becoming a part of them. Tick, tick … Please let it go on, prayed Annabel silently. We are so near, we are nearly there. Only a very little longer. And the Horsemen have not yet reached the Cavern; I can still hear them. If only we can get there in time …
And then Taliesin gave a shout, and Fergus said, “There it is!”
Directly ahead of them, through a wide arch of rock, lit by burning torches that were never allowed to go out, was the cavern of the Doomsday Clock.
“Unguarded!” cried Fergus, moving forward. “Quickly!” And then — “Can you see the Clock?” he shouted, and Taliesin, who was standing framed in the archway, shading his eyes with one hand, said softly, “Yes, I can see it.
“And it stands at exactly one minute to midnight.”
*
But the Clock was still ticking. It was ticking swiftly and surely, and the hands were moving slowly, inexorably, but it was still ticking. And we are ahead of the Horsemen, thought Annabel. Somehow we have beaten them. If only we can do it, if only we can climb up to it …
The Cavern was smaller than they had expected. There was a high vaulted ceiling, and there were arches and niches in the rockface. Taliesin glanced at them, and thought they were probably natural rock formations. Shadows stirred above them, and several times they caught the soft beating of wings. But no one came to challenge them, and nothing came creeping out of the shadows, and as they stood there, it seemed to each of them as if a tremendous hush had descended.
Wall brackets were all round the Cavern, and burning torches were thrust into each one, lighting the Cavern to eerie life. There was the pungent scent of wood burning, and there was a feeling not only of extreme age, but also of great silence and of great peace, as if this was the heart and the core and the centre of the world.